


The Marlboro Menace

by silveradept



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 06:06:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11030193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/pseuds/silveradept
Summary: It's a date! Except for the monster. And for the Lieutenant that can't actually keep a secret and the other one who doesn't say a whole lot. And the fact the date all happens under a proclamation that says one is technically the prisoner of the other.But everything will work out fine in the end. Honest.





	The Marlboro Menace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NightsMistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/gifts).



"Therefore I, Laguna Loire, President of Esthar, do release Rinoa Heartlily into the care and custody of the Gardens, to be overseen by Balamb Garden Commander and A-Rank SeeD Squall Leonheart and/or any of his subordinates that he deems appropriate, and request all Gardens to join in this task so as to prevent further incidents involving Sorceresses."

Squall blinked at the proclamation as he read it. Laguna clearly loved to hear himself talk, even when he was writing. It made him difficult to understand, especially when he was being this formal.

"So... I guess that means I'm your prisoner, huh, Squall?" Rinoa flashed a smile at him, one that Squall knew was some part disappointment and probably a much bigger part glee.

"Looks like it," he replied. He didn't...mind having to stay with Rinoa, but he also knew that she would be a distraction to his duties to the Garden and all the people there that were under his care and custody, as Laguna had put it.

"We'll have to celebrate," Rinoa said, keeping her smile.

Squall kept silent. How anyone could be happy at the prospect of being under guard constantly in case she manifested the Sorceress' powers was beyond him.

"Because it means Laguna gave his blessing for us to be together!" she added.

"...figures." Squall muttered. Leave it to Laguna to try and find a way of making a romance out of a detention situation. Laguna had clearly assumed that he and Rinoa would get together after Ultemecia, to the point of trying to set them up on dates disguised as victory celebrations. That stopped after Squall had deliberately shown up to one covered in monster ichor, brandishing a tentacle at anyone that wanted to see. Laguna had spun it into something positive, but he'd also taken the hint.

"It'll be fun!" Rinoa gushed, grabbing Squall's hand and pulling him toward the door of the house they were staying in.

"Now?" Squall protested. "It's barely mid-afternoon."

"Then there's enough time for us to get ready! You need a haircut and some better clothes for this."

Mercifully, the shopping was brief. Even more mercifully, Rinoa sent Squall away so that she could prepare for the "celebration," deciding she wanted to take Quistis with her as a "guard." Squall knew she would have wanted Selphie, too, but she was off rebuilding Trabia Garden with Seifer under another of Laguna's proclamations. 

Squall didn't understand why Laguna thought it so important to keep people who were on the wrong side of the conflict away from anyone that might hold a grudge, instead of putting them in prison. When he had asked, Laguna's explanation about optics and reconciliation didn't help.

Turning into the street where the house was, Squall noticed Raijin and Fujin waiting outside the front door.

"PROBLEMS?" Fujin asked as Squall came through the gate.

"...maybe." Squall replied. "Not important, though. What do you have for me?"

Raijin and Fujin exchanged glances. 

Squall shrugged. "Laguna's latest proclamation means I have a lot of paperwork to do to keep Rinoa safe. You want to join me?"

"SOCIAL," Fujin said, shaking her head.

"Yeah, we're here to get you out of your work, ya know?" Raijin explained.

Squall had expected the pair to accompany Seifer to Trabia, but for reasons he could never quite get anyone to admit, they stayed with him. Rinoa enjoyed their company, and had almost the same level of fluency in deciphering Fujin's one-word pronouncements as Raijin did. Squall found them both capable commanders, but it was still hard for him to think of them as something other than Seifer's lieutenants.

"Rinoa?" Squall asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.

"Nah," Raijin dismissed with a wave of his hand. "We're doing this on our own. Thought you might want to just go somewhere without having to be the head of Balamb, ya know?"

"CARDS?" Fujin asked, displaying a Triple Triad deck.

Squall couldn't remember where his cards were. Or when he had last played a game. Rinoa refused to let him stay in his office until the work was done, claiming he would never leave if he did. And when they traveled, she often made sure he could only spend a day or two at the local Garden or office, claiming he should do more than work. All that did, in his opinion, was leave ever-greater amounts of work undone. How Cid had handled all of it, Squall still didn't understand.

Before he could refuse, though, and claim he needed to do more work, Raijin had blocked the door, Fujin standing next to him.

"Break time," he said.

"DRINKS," Fujin added.

"You've got a date tonight," Raijin smiled. "Can't have you thinking about work."

"So Rinoa did put you up to this," Squall said. "Fine." He turned toward the car on the street.

Fujin rolled her eyes and kicked Raijin in the shins before heading toward the car herself.

"IDIOT."

When they arrived at a fancy restaurant, Squall cringed. Formal spaces reminded him of medals, ceremonies, and funerals. They made him Commander of Balamb Garden and a SeeD and the person that Laguna mentioned in proclamations that had to deal with Sorceresses and the public.

Rinoa thrived in those spaces, or had, at least, until she became Sorceress Rinoa. Now, where they went, he always felt like everyone was staring at them, waiting to see if she would start destroying everything, with him at her side. Maybe they could find some sort of normal life once they started living on the Garden, surrounded by students training to kill Sorceresses. It would keep her safe in case she manifested her powers suddenly. Here, though, he would feel exposed.

Rinoa waved to Squall as soon as she saw him. She'd chosen white to wear tonight, a dress that strongly reminded Squall of what she had worn when she dragged him out on to the floor at the ball. It made a perfect contrast with his black jacket and pants. Black and white, good and evil, SeeD and Sorceress. They made a prefect couple for the cameras, whether as a symbol of reconciliation or of strife. Squall thought he saw someone discreetly trying to record them at their table.

Rinoa seemed completely unaware of this as she hugged him tightly. She'd chosen a table in the middle of the dining area, with plenty of windows for passerby to look in and stare at them without trying to do so. And that dress looked a little on the small side to cover everything it needed to. Clearly the excitement at seeing him had influenced her choices toward the more public.

"How many of the people here are staring at us?" she whispered in his ear, surprising him. Pulling back to sit down, she winked at him. For anyone else, it would have seemed flirtatious, but to him, it was clearly conspiratorial. Had she set this up to be so public? Squall took his seat with a new eye toward their situation.

"What do you have planned for the evening?" he asked her.

"Dinner with you, and then I thought I would make a decision based on how that went. You could certainly use the time off, and it would probably be good for us to be seen together so that people don't think a dangerous force is unescorted."

She _had_ thought this through, he realized. It was hard not to still see her as the irresponsible girl that had hired him to help with the Forest Owls. He wanted her to take the fact that she had three Sorceresses' power in her more seriously. Or that at any point, he might have to kill her the same way he had killed Adel and Ultemecia.

"How can you be so cheerful about all of this?" he said, realizing a second later that he had said it aloud.

"Because you're here," she replied, taking his hands in hers. "If we're together, we can face anything. Although, if you're going to have to kill me, I'd prefer that you did it somewhere less public than this," she said, darkening her expression. Squall understood that she had no intent of allowing herself to die easily or meekly at his or any other SeeD's hands. Squall stopped the train of thought before he would allow himself to realize that someone else _would_ have to kill her, if it came to that.

As if waiting for the cue, a rumble from the far wall preceded the entry of a large, green, very tentacled Marlboro through that same wall. Raijin and Fujin followed shortly afterward.

Raijin cast a sheepish look at Squall before returning his attention to the monster. He started to make the motions to summon a Guardian Force to handle the situation before Fujin punched him very solidly in the shoulder, interrupting him. 

"CIVILIANS!" she shouted at him.

"Right, sorry," Raijin said, dodging a tentacle. "You don't have to be so mean about it, ya know."

"LATER," Fujin replied.

Squall cast a glance at Rinoa, who had already fit her favored disc to its launcher. His gunblade cleared its sheath as he started to run towards the Marlboro.

Squall swung at the first tentacle that came his way, slicing a good way into it before pressing the trigger to blast the blade all the way through. A bolt of lightning arced by his head, slamming into the opening his blade had just created. It would have been tactically sound, if Raijin had waited until he was farther away before unleashing the lightning. Maybe Raijin had thought he was Seifer and just knew how they fought?

Squall's ears were still ringing from the lightning when the gas cloud enveloped him. Choking and stumbling, he barely dodged one tentacle before another slammed into him, sending him flying. Rolling to his feet, Squall realized he was having trouble seeing and speaking. He hadn't come with a full battle kit, because Rinoa had insisted that he wasn't in danger from a proclamation, and he hadn't been back to fully re-equip after humoring her. Someone was going to have to notice his condition, but they would be too busy fighting to help.

Squall cursed himself mentally for not being more prepared. He had expected human resistance, but not monsters, and certainly not this caliber of creature. Over the sounds of the fighting, Squall heard Fujin giving orders on how to beat deal with the monster, as well as the signs of another spell being readied.

Before his vision faded completely, Squall saw Rinoa, angel wings extending from her back, casting ice spikes from her hands into the monster, pinning each remaining tentacle to the ground before raining spikes into the creature's body until it was still.

Squall never enjoyed this situation. Every SeeD went through having this kind of magic placed on them so they could experience it and not panic in the middle of a battle. Some of the cadets felt they were more effective in an altered state once they had gotten used to it. Squall often put them in the same units with others who had similar physical impairments so they could experience what it was like to have that status all the time. 

Now that the immediate threat was over, as part of damage assessment, someone would notice him and provide the appropriate remedies. His eyes were clouded over and stung horribly, his throat felt both paralyzed and on fire, but thankfully, it didn't feel like his innards were trying to escape his body, so at least he hadn't been envenomated. He'd live, and eventually the effects would wear off on their own, if nobody actually noticed, or if some other attack started.

He jumped a little when someone touched his arm without announcing who they were or where they were. Had to be Rinoa, he thought. Fujin was too well-trained to break procedure, and he hadn't heard Raijin get hit.

"Squall? Can you hear me?" she asked.

He nodded, and made the "silenced" and "darkness" signs, hoping she would remember what they meant.

She laughed. "You know, 'silenced' and your normal state aren't all that different. Yes, I remember," she continued, "because you spend all that time teaching it to those children."

His surprise must have been more obvious that he thought. 

"The other two SeeDs went to get antidotes for you Apparently, they had run out before running into us." 

Squall tried not to give any indication that he recognized the joke Rinoa had made. It would encourage her to go on a spree of jokes for the remainder of the night, and he didn't feel particularly light-hearted.

She whispered in his ear again. "While we wait, though, maybe we could continue our date? There's a lot of people staring at us. It might provide them with a sense of normality."

Squall shook his head. He already knew the paperwork would be a pain to deal with, and the last thing he wanted was to pretend everything was normal. This was a disaster. He'd been careless in front of everyone, and Rinoa had used her magic. Sorceress destroys monster that SeeDs can't handle. Very confidence-boosting. Feeling for a chair, he sat down in it and listened for Raijin and Fujin's return.

He didn't expect Rinoa to kiss him. He grabbed what he hoped was the table to balance himself against her unexpected force, which she took as an invitation to wrap her arms around him and pull him further into the kiss. He wasn't sure what his facial expression was, but he hoped it conveyed the surprise he felt. Not that he could protest it. In addition to his eyes and throat, Squall could feel his body starting to lock up. Toppling over would have been an extra-special treat for all the onlookers. Instead, they got to watch the Commander of the Garden get beaten by a monster and then treated like a helpless pet.

"I'm glad you're okay," she said. "I don't know what I would do if I lost you."

Squall knew. And had an system, entire _Gardens_ of systems in place to make sure what needed to be done got done if it should happen.

"You don't have to go charging in yourself to everything any more," she continued, kissing him again. "You have SeeDs. You have friends. You have me." She hugged Squall, clearly taking advantage of his state to make them seem more intimate than they really were. "You don't have to protect me, Squall. At least, not from outside threats."

Squall shook his head. Where were Raijin and Fujin with the remedies? They never took this long to bring Seifer back up to strength. And here he was, the supposed protector, the buffer between the sorceress and the public, and all he could do right now was sit and look--

"--useless," he said, as his sight cleared and voice returned to him.

"Hey, man, that's harsh, ya know?" Raijin said. "We got back here as fast as we could with your medicine."

"SELF-LOATHING," Fujin said, explaining everything in a single word.

" _Esuna_ ," Squall said, with an edge to his voice that suggested the restorative spell should have been the first thing on everyone's mind. It would have taken care of all the issues as soon as anyone realized he had them. Every SeeD was supposed to have a stock of those spells available for just such a situation as this one. Raijin whistled innocently and looked away from Squall. Fujin shook her head at Raijin's obviousness.

"We thought it might work a bit better for you two if..." Raijin shrugged.

"...you left me vulnerable in case someone else decided to attack?" Squall finished.

Rinoa took advantage of Squall's distracted state to plant another kiss on his cheek, trying to draw his attention to her.

"I thought it was romantic," she said. "I don't get many opportunities to care for you, since you seem to think anything other than stoicism is unacceptable. It was nice for you to be vulnerable for a bit."

Squall stared at all of them. It was beginning to sound like they had planned all of this, including the release of the monster into the restaurant.

"...whatever," he said, shaking his head and starting back toward the car. There was no way that he was going to give anyone the benefit of seeing him angry. In public, at least.

Rinoa looked back at Raijin and Fujin, winked, grinning broadly at them, and mouthed a thank you.

"TRAINING," Fujin said pointedly at Rinoa.

Rinoa frowned. "I wasn't that bad," she said, "and we took care of the monster. That's what's important, right?"

Fujin tapped her watch. "TOMORROW."

"All right," Rinoa sighed, before smoothing her face and walking swiftly to catch up to Squall.

"TACTICS," Fujin said, shaking her head at the receding couple.

"I don't get it, either," Raijin said. "Drinks?" he added, offering his arm.

Fujin nodded, snagging a plate of leftover hors d'oeuvres for them to share before accompanying him to the bar.


End file.
